Shot from our last festival show, Ho-Hoi-Yan Festival Taiwan – July 3013. Last song of the set – Without.

It was a great moment but a little melancholy too. I think we knew as those final notes were played, that we weren’t coming back for a long while – if ever. Ho Hoi Yan was a huge festival and an amazing finale to 6 years of overseas touring. 20,000 people in the crowd as we waved goodbye & walked off stage.

Fires out.

This is classic. It’s also a sad indictment on how music & musicians are valued. In a capitalist society, like it or not – we’re all subject to the laws of supply and demand. Yet somehow most musicians also find themselves perceived as providing a near financially worthless commodity. At the same time, we all love music. Radios on while we’re working, headphones in riding the train, tunes playing in the background at your local bar or pub, music blaring at sporting events, weddings, funerals etc etc. And all that before we even start talking about live music venues & festivals. Yet somehow, we generally don’t seem to value very much the people who make it. To illustrate the point, here’s a post on Craigslist from a restaurant in Vancouver –

Thanks to Mal Bowker for posting this on Facebook.

Fires out.

This is hardly rock & roll news – but relevant to living in a construction zone above a new venue being created in the shop-front below. Max’s mum, Jan gave us an old mini-oven & it’s kept us going for the past 4 months. This little sucker doesn’t look like much – but packs a punch. It’s done about 40 pizzas, a stack of pies, toasted sangas and whatever else we can squeeze in there. 2 hot-plates on top to fry snags & eggs. Fingers crossed – it hasn’t looked like breaking down yet. Proper kitchen could be a long way off.

Jan’s little ripper.

BBQ out the back & slow cooker shouldn’t go unmentioned. Good team.

Fires out.

Investigative journalist John Pilger alerted me to an Australia vastly different from the one I thought I knew, when I saw a documentary he’d made in the 90’s about Indigenous Australians. Pilger doesn’t pull punches. His aim is not just to uncover the truth – but to tell it no matter how uncomfortable it might be to hear, or see. As you would expect, he is very unpopular in mainstream media and politics. In short, they hate him – especially here in Australia. But that hatred doesn’t change the facts or the real history of this country. Nor does it stop Pilger delivering the truth in a calm, rational and dignified manner. His latest documentary will likely slip through the cracks in Australia – at a time when it absolutely shouldn’t.

Fires out.

Another one bights the dust. Jonesy’s Chili Sauce on 8 pizzas in 5 days (had Monday off) wiped out the jar. All pizza’d-out here. Gotta make something different tonight. Things are a little shaky ’round the back-hatch (to put it politely). And here’s a shot of said empty jar & pizza number 8, made last night.

Fires out (sort of).

Chris loaded this poster on FB yesterday. Not a bad gig if you can make it. Always gob-smacked at the caliber of concerts regularly traveling through the northern hemisphere. Tyranny of distance keeps us a little out of the loop down-under.

Remember sitting on a train in Warsaw, seeing a poster featuring insanely big bands like Sabbath, Motley Crew, Metallica, Megadeth and our very own Airborne (good on em). The show had an enormous date list, traveling Europe east to west.

Fires out.

Jonesy dropped in Friday night with the latest batch of home-made chili sauce. Pizza making ensued – 5 in total over the weekend, all with Jonesy’s sauce at the base. Tearing through the jar already. Had a brief chat about where to sell it; the venue, website etc. Hopefully we’ll get it out there somehow (before my insides collapse).

Hot stuff: Pizza number 1, Friday night – Jonesy’s Chili Sauce on the base.

Fires out.

Went out for drinks with friends last night at Lane’s Edge bar, Bourke Street Melbourne. Caught the train from Collingwood. Missed the first one waiting for someone in front who was having trouble with ridiculous Myki ticket machine. Should count myself lucky – got the next one about 20 minutes later (housemate recently missed a train back from Greensborough at 10pm – and there were no more so he was forced into a cab). Despite government advertising & assurances, public transport in Melbourne is third rate by any standard (got talking about this last night). A common defense is our ‘lack of population’, especially when comparing train systems in Europe. Indeed, this is a very poor defense. Take Berlin, population 3.44 million. No matter what station you’re at, trains leave every 2-3 minutes, 24 hours a day. Ticketing is simple & cheap. So everybody uses public transport all the time as second nature.

Map of Berlin’s train system. Note the ring rails & comprehensive interplay between lines, making for relatively easy travel north-south/east-west anywhere in the metropolitan area.

Back to Melbourne: Population 4.1 million – trains leave unpredictably and often 20 – 30 minutes apart (when they’re not cancelled without notice). Melbourne is also a wealthier city by GDP. It’s as though for the past 30 years we’ve failed to notice (or care) about a gradual & incremental slip behind the rest of the world when it comes to public transport. Tragically, Melbourne has become a city choked by traffic congestion as more and more commuters are forced onto grid-locked roads. The government’s answer: Shelve all new rail projects and build MORE roads. Why is it that the most economically sensible, socially and environmentally responsible transport solution is so horribly ignored in Australia’s 2nd largest & fastest growing city?

Fires out.

2nd December 2013; we applied to Origin to get gas connected to the new venue – principally for luxury items like cooking, washing & heating. Get this – it took THREE MONTHS to connect a gas line (early THIS month). But we can’t have a meter yet because Origin need permission from Energy Safe Victoria. So the gas pipe comes into the building & terminates.

You can call your ESV inspector between 7:30 – 9am weekdays to book an appointment – except he doesn’t answer the phone during those times. Got through to someone else in the office at ESV only to learn our ‘paperwork’ had been sitting there since early March doing absolutely nothing & no-one knows why. Guy said – “Tell your plumber to give us a call”.

If we ever actually get gas connected here it will probably be by coincidence or random chance. All this stuff reminds me that as much as we think we’re living in 2014 Australia, it’s really just 1975 with internet. Cheers Origin & ESV – here’s to rugging up for a cold winter.

Fires out.

Sunset over Melbourne taken out the front window above the new venue in Collingwood.

Spent the day measuring every wall, door & window, preparing plans for council. Moving as fast as we can to open as a performance & venue-hire space.

Fires out.